TimeLess (Time Tells, #2) (ON-GOING)

Chapter Nine

It takes me four whole seconds to even move. When I do, I'm at his back, pressing my hand to his shoulder and turning him around.

His hands drop from his hair and he turns to face me. I freeze at the torment his eyes dance with, swirls locking and changing.

"What do you mean?" I whisper.

It takes him a moment of stunned silence, as if he couldn't believe I didn't know. Or I hadn't perceived it already.

"Alanna.." He starts, his lips parting as if in shock, "Don't you see? I strong-armed you into marriage."

"I threw the largest bait that I knew you'd never turn down—that you were in fact incapable of turning down—and I cast a web designed for you and tightened the noose around you. Then I blamed you for turning victim to it."

I didn't have words to speak. My thoughts blanked and my throat closed.

"I hated that you'd fallen for the ploy, despite my having devised its very threads to ensure you would." He takes a step forward, fingers lifting as if to touch me, before he stills.. drops his hand.

His gaze drops for a moment as well... before he takes a breath and his gaze slams into mine. I rock back on my heels at the gravity of his gaze. It burned ice.

"I trapped you, Alanna." He says, "I cheated, tricked and ensnared you."

He waits then, his gaze almost imploring but hard at the same time. His jaw tightens, shoulders drawn as if awaiting judgement.

I draw a deep breath in. "And?" I ask.

The shock that splays over his face is... as if his world had shaken beneath him.

"And?" He repeats, "Wasn't that enough?"

His frustration mounts, "Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm saying I lied, how can you not see—"

"I've already asked you this." I remind him.

He blinks, rearing back. "What?"

"After we got married—the first time—while we were in the car heading home, I asked you 'Why didn't you just tell me?'"

He stares at me for a whole minute.

"And by that... you meant.." he trails.

"I meant why didn't you just walk up to me. Let me see you." I lift one shoulder, "That's all I would've needed.. cared about."

His fingers close, then open.

"That's all.. it would've taken?" He asks.

My brows furrow, "Kri, are you kidding me?" I ask, "I would've married you where we were standing."

I walk up to him but when instinct tells me he wasn't ready for me to touch him yet, I grit my teeth and still. I was standing closer than before, but not close. Not close enough.

His eyes were wide, swirling. An unshuttered gaze, a child's disbelief. It struck a pang of pain and worry inside me.

What was going on? 

"Kri, we've established this, I love you. I've always loved you. I will always love you. It's always been you for me."

My own frustration beats at me. "What do you want me to do to prove this to you?"

He blinks out of his daze, staring down at me as if for the first time.

Suddenly, something strikes me and almost immediately my blood runs cold before conviction and faith in Kri warms it back immediately.